1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus, methods, etc. used for mobile telecommunications. More particularly, it relates to those apparatus and methods in which information, advertising and other content are retrieved over a mobile network from the Internet and then organized and presented on mobile networked devices as a service for entities and mobile networked device users to view and interact with the information and then send data related to the interaction back to the remote web application servers to affect change to the relationship between the entity and user.
2. Background Art
Voice communications has been the primary service provided by mobile network operators. Capabilities for providing mobile data communication services, however, are now being deployed on a relatively widespread basis and are expected by many to represent a significant area of growth in the years ahead. Providing applications for use on mobile networked devices is one significant area of mobile data services. Such applications will most certainly include those that enable users to affect change in their relationship with entities that touch their lives such as banking and finance, health care, education, dining, entertainment, and social clubs. Today, much of this is handled over the Internet from the desktop browser, but more and more will be done over mobile networked devices. This will require efficient methods and techniques for displaying the same information on the screen of the mobile networked device.
Different strategies for providing such applications have emerged. Much of the initial development focused on server-side execution of applications in which most of the processing power resides in the network operator's, or a third party's, servers. This strategy was employed, for example, by the wireless application protocol (WAP), which uses WAP browsers to receive and display content and applications that are generated by remote servers. User responses are then sent back through the network to the remote servers for processing and any further actions. Thus, there can be significant delays as information and display formatting is sent back and forth between the mobile networked device and the remote server.
As processors have become smaller and cheaper, along with cheaper and more compact memories, it has become more feasible to increase the processing power on the mobile networked device which enables applications to be implemented locally on the mobile networked device. Sun Microsystems's Java technology, which is implemented on mobile networked devices as J2ME, offers one possible way of implementing applications on mobile networked devices which is described in further detail at http://www.java.sun.com; Qualcomm has developed the Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) platform, which is described in further detail at http://www.qualcomm.com/brew; Flash Lite has been implemented for development of applications, with more information at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite; Microsoft has implemented Windows Mobile for mobile networked devices; and finally Google has announced the launch of its own mobile networked device with a proprietary operating system and the Android Software Developer Kit for developers using Java. Moreover, all of these technologies enable applications to be downloaded over the air and stored locally on a mobile networked device.